


Starry Eyes

by TeaRoses



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-24
Updated: 2010-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:50:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A ficlet about Seras Victoria's police days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starry Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Some dialogue adapted from a British police recruitment campaign.

Seras Victoria had gone to the training center alone of course, carrying her own suitcase and telling herself that she knew what she was doing. She had always wanted this, hadn't she? She had been brought up to believe in dedication and service, the protection of the people.

The room was shared with roommates who seemed to find her rather amusing when they weren't ignoring her. Some were older, and they definitely seemed tougher. Some were school dropouts, and young like herself, but all of them had spent some time holding other jobs. None of them had come starry eyed straight to the center after being given the uniform.

"It's only fifteen weeks here," she told herself. "It's not that bad."

The instructors weren't much better, really. She told herself they were supposed to be that way, supposed to take their little digs at idealism and naiveté.

"But I'm not naïve," she told herself. "My father brought me up to do this and others taught me after he did."

There were examinations, simulated crime scenes, and self defense. She had thought that paying attention to classes and meeting the physical challenges would be sufficient to make it through. She was intelligent and strong, and she felt confident enough.

Then she realized they wanted to make her think more than that, to realize it wasn't a simple world where good police folk triumphed over evil criminals. She actually admired them for that. But other times they seemed to want to break her in some way, and she never knew how far she could go in answering them.

One particularly persistent instructor seemed to be taking turns baiting all of them, and it was halfway through the training period before he got to Seras.

"So, Miss Victoria," he said with a glare. "I hear it's your life-time goal to be a W. P. C. How noble and glorious."

She flinched, but didn't reply.

"Do you think you'll get respect? Do you think that smart coat will exempt you somehow from being leered at? Will the dangerous criminals be frightened of your cute little self?"

She bit her tongue. She had heard worse; that went without saying.

He approached her now.  
"Can you handle your emotions, Miss Victoria? Can you arrest an impoverished old woman for shoplifting cat food? Can you tell a mother her little daughter has been killed by a drunken driver?"

He waited, clearly expecting an answer.

"I can do that," she said finally. "Emotions don't come into it."

"Of course they do," he corrected her. Then he changed his tack.

"Are you really ready for anything? Are you prepared to beat down doors with your colleagues in a drug raid? Are you prepared to try to pull a man off his wife when he's trying to beat her to death, and he can't understand English? Can you tell a sawn-off shotgun from a piece of wood?"

She had never seen a sawn-off shotgun, or broken up a fight. She stared back at the smirking man.

She made her voice as cold as she could. "I know what I'll have to do, sir, and I'm fully prepared."

She carried that thought through until she left the place, still in her crisp uniform with her little suitcase.

"I can handle whatever happens now."


End file.
